Mapping airline routes

Connection Map

Photo by Wade Lambert on Unsplash

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage….
— Mark Russell

Ingest

Routes and lights

flights_routes <- read.csv("archetypes/flight-routes/british-airways.csv", header = TRUE)
flights_routes

# use city populations to simulate lights as in original
lights = read.csv("archetypes/cities-top-10000-world.csv", header = TRUE, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
# lights

Wrangle

group and filter

flights_points <- flights_routes %>%
  group_by(group) %>%
  filter(row_number() == 1 | row_number() == n())

flights_points

Base map

natural earth

# PLOT NATURAL EARTH BORDERS
ne_world <- ne_countries(scale = "small", returnclass = "sf")
# removes Antarctica
ne_world <- filter(ne_world, iso_a3 != "ATA")

Map Theme

Theme, light and dark

theme_opts <- theme(
      axis.line=element_blank(),
      axis.text.x=element_blank(),
      axis.text.y=element_blank(),
      axis.ticks=element_blank(),
      axis.title.x=element_blank(),
      axis.title.y=element_blank(),
      legend.position="none",
      legend.title = element_blank(),
      panel.grid.major = element_blank(),
      panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
      panel.background=element_rect(fill="#0d0e1b", colour="#0d0e1b"),
      panel.border = element_blank()
)

theme_dark <- theme(
      panel.background=element_rect(fill="#0d0e1b", colour="#0d0e1b")
)

theme_light <- theme(
      panel.background=element_rect(fill="#ffffff", colour="#ffffff")
)

Connection Map

with dark theme

v1 <- ggplot() +
  # Draw the natural earth map  styling to match blue marble dark lights
  geom_sf(data = ne_world, fill="#0f1227", color="#1c3153", stroke=1.0) +
  # Plot all the lights of the cities at night
  geom_point(data = lights, aes(x=lng, y=lat, alpha=Population), size=0.5, color="#ffffff" ) +
  # routes
  geom_path(data = flights_routes, aes(long, lat, group = id, color = name), alpha = 0.2, size = 0.5) + 
  # airline hubs
  geom_point(data = flights_points, aes(long, lat), alpha = 0.3, size = 1, colour = "#f9ba00") +
  # brightness by population
  scale_alpha_continuous(range=c(0.1,1), guide=FALSE) +
  # color by airline
  scale_color_manual(values = c("#f9ba00", "#075aaa", "#ff0000")) +
  theme_bw() +
  labs(x="",
       y="",
       title = "Airline Flight Routes", 
       subtitle="") +
  theme_opts +
  theme_dark

girafe(ggobj = v1, width_svg = 16, height_svg = 7,
       options = list(opts_sizing(rescale = TRUE, width = 1.0)))

Connection Map

with light theme

v2 <- ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = ne_world, fill="#f5f5f5", color="#d5d5d5", stroke=1.0) +
  # lights
  geom_point(data = lights, aes(x=lng, y=lat, alpha=Population), size=0.5, color="#777777" ) +
  # routes
  geom_path(data = flights_routes, aes(long, lat, group = id, color = name), alpha = 0.2, size = 0.5) + 
  # airline hubs
  geom_point(data = flights_points, aes(long, lat), alpha = 0.3, size = 1, colour = "#075aaa") +
  # brightness by population
  scale_alpha_continuous(range=c(0.1,1), guide=FALSE) +
  # color by airline
  scale_color_manual(values = c("#075aaa", "#f9ba00", "#ff0000")) +
  theme_bw() +
  labs(x="",
       y="",
       title = "Airline Flight Routes", 
       subtitle="") +
  theme_opts +
  theme_light

girafe(ggobj = v2, width_svg = 16, height_svg = 7,
       options = list(opts_sizing(rescale = TRUE, width = 1.0)))

References

citations for narrative and data sources

Narrative and Data source: Open Flights,GO